It has heretofore been well-known that a color image may be formed in such a manner that a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material is imagewise exposed and color-developed in a coupling reaction of a color forming agent with the oxidized product of an aromatic primary amine type color developing agent through which such a dye as indophenol, indoaniline, indamine, azomethine, phenoxazine, phenazine and the similar dyes thereto may be produced. Normally, this kind of photographic systems has so far adopted a subtractive color reproduction process and used a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material containing, in the blue-sensitive, green-sensitive and red-sensitive silver halide light-sensitive emulsion layers thereof, color forming agents in the complementary color relation, respectively, that is, the couplers capable of producing colors in yellow, magenta and cyan, respectively.
It has been well-known that the above-mentioned couplers to be used for forming yellow color images include, for example, acylacetanilide type couplers; the couplers for forming magenta color images include, for example, those of the pyrazolone, pyrazolobenzimidazole, pyrazolotriazole or indazolone type; and the couplers for forming cyan color images include, for example, those of the phenol or naphthol type; and they have popularly been used.
It has been requested that such a dye image should neither be discolored nor faded even if it is exposed to light for a long time or stored under the conditions of high temperature and humidity. It has also been requested that any of the non-color image formed areas of a silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material (hereinafter called a color photographic material) should not be stained into yellow (hereinafter called a Y-stain) by light, heat and/or moisture.
In the case of magenta couplers, however, there has often raised such a serious problem that Y-stains produced in non-color image formed areas by light, heat and/or moisture have been more serious than in the cases of yellow or cyan couplers.
One of the typical couplers having popularly been used for forming such magenta dyes is a 5-pyrazolone. The dyes each formed from the magenta couplers of the 5-pyrazolone type have such a serious problem that a subabsorption is in around 430 nm, beside the main absorption is in around 550 nm. To solve this problem, various studies and researches have so far been made.
They are the magenta couplers having so far been proposed, such a pyrazolonebenzimidazole as described in British Pat. No. 1,047,612, such an indazolone as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,770,447, such a pyrazolotriazole as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,725,067 and British Pat. Nos. 1,252,418 and 1,334,515, and so forth. Among them, the dyes formed from 1H-pyrazolo[3,2-C]-s-triazole type magenta couplers described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,725,067 and British Pat. Nos. 1,252,418 and 1,334,515, each of which has the preferable advantages that the subabsorption in around 430 nm is substantially less and Y-stains produced in non-color image formed areas by light, heat and moisture are also substantially less.
As for the dyes each formed from the above-mentioned magenta couplers having a substantially less subabsorption in around 430 .mu.m, there have similarly been proposed those of pyrazolobenzimidazoles described in British Pat. No. 1,047,612, imidazolones described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,770,447, 1H-pyrazolo[5,1-c]-1,2,4-triazoles described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,725,067 and British Pat. Nos. 1,252,418 and 1,334,515, 1H-pyrazolo[1,5-b]-1,2,4-triazoles described in Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (hereinafter called Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication) No. 171956/1984 and Research Disclosure No. 24531, 1H-pyrazolo[1,5-c]-1,2,3-triazoles described in Research Disclosure No. 24626, 1H-imidazo[1,2-b]pyrazoles described in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 162548/1984 and Research Disclosure No. 24531, 1H-pyrazolo[1,5-b]pyrazoles described in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 43659/1985 and Research Disclosure No. 24230, 1H-pyrazolo[1,5-d]tetrazoles described in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 33552/1985 and Research Disclosure No. 24220, and so forth.
However, some of these azole type ones have had the problems on color developability.
Besides the above, International Patent Publication (WO) No. 86/02467 proposes a magenta coupler relatively less in subabsorption and excellent in spectral absorption characteristics and in dissolution/dispersion characteristics and color developability of the couplers, similar to the above-given couplers.
The magenta coupler proposed therein are relatively excellent in dissolution/dispersion characteristics and color developability rather than the conventional azole type couplers, however, they still have a defect in their fastness against light.
In the recent photographic industry, on the other hand, when reproducing the above-mentioned dye images, a high temperature process and a processing simplification have generally been tried with the purpose of economizing a time consumption required for various processing steps. Particularly, it is essential to improve the processing rate of a color developing process so as to shorten a processing time having been required in high temperature processes.
It has been well-known that the processing rate of a color process depends greatly upon the configurations, sizes and compositions of silver halide grains which are to be contained in silver halide emulsion. It has particularly been well-known that silver chloride grains may be able to display a substantially high processing rate if they are under specific conditions, so that they may be able to preferably contribute to shortening a procesing time, as described in Japanese Patent O.P.I. Publication No. 232342/1984.
Accordingly, the present inventors have tried their experiments by making use of the coupler described in the above-mentioned International Patent Publication (WO) No. 86/02467 and further the silver halide grains each having a relatively high silver chloride content and, resultingly, they have succeeded to raise the processing rate and to achieve more improvements in color developability, as compared with the conventional azole type magenta couplers. However, the fastness against light thereof still remained unimproved similar to the case of the conventional azole type couplers. Therefore, the inventors have tried to use therein an anti-discoloring agent in combination, however, any fastness against light has not been improved with keeping a rapid processing compatibility, because the color developability has seriously been deteriorated, though the fastness against light has been improved to some extent.
Accordingly, the inventors have improved the fastness against light of dye images formed from the above-mentioned couplers having the excellent advantages in dissolution/dispersion characteristics and in color developing characteristics and, further, studied on light-sensitive materials each suitable for rapid processing. Resultingly, the inventors have found that such fastness against light can be improved without deterioration of color developability in a rapid processes, when using silver halide grains each containing silver chloride in an amount of not less than 80 mol % and a high boiling organic solvent in a specific proportion to couplers used, so as to serve as the dispersion medium of both couplers and anti-discoloring agent used therein.
In addition to the above, the inventors have similarly studied on not only the coupler described in the International Patent Publication (WO) No. 86/02467, but also the couplers similar to the above-mentioned coupler, so that the inventors have finally achieved this invention.